Archive for February, 2010

With the cold snowy weather came time to stay inside this weekend and paint. As a result I was able to go back to one of my old subjects… the bear.
Inspired by my favorite painter, John Nieto I worked on a painting that resembles one of his paintings. More of an exercise with color… this painting brings back the roar of the great bear in new and bright colors. Look for more bear paintings to come.

Another fun little painting about the life of the clownfish.
This painting I worked on over the weekend. I feel comfortable with the results. The price for this painting is $450. Contact me for a special price at grantp@hiwaay.net

While recovering from open heart surgery I was reading the book, “The Shack”, a wonderful book dealing with one person’s thoughts about his relationship with God. A powerful thought-provoking book which I cherish to help me stay focused in my life.
One of the more interesting discussions came when Mack, the main character, met and visited the Holy Spirit’s garden. Expecting it to be a formal English garden Mack was surprised and said it was a “mess”. The holy spirit said she thought it as fractal.
This moved me to paint the garden through my own eyes. In earlier additions to this blog I have photos of my daughter, Amanda and granddaughter, Nadia as they plant flowers in my garden. (I painted two earlier versions of the holy spirit garden) Without a gardener the holy spirit took over my garden and it became a “mess”. A beautiful mess of colors. I recommend the book to everyone to read. You may not agree with every concept in the book, however, it deals with the age-old question of why bad things happen and how we deal with the results. It is one man’s views of how God has turned the earth over to man and let him have “free will” to choose his own destiny.
Below are few interesting passages from the first two pages of chapter 9 of the book. The way he talks of color in the garden all seems to relate back to my feelings of painting. Here are those parts of chapter 9:
Speaking of the holy spirit, “Her nature was rather ethereal, full of dynamic shades and hues of color and motion. She obviously is not a being who is predictable.”
“It was chaos in color”
“Dazzling sprays of flowers were blasted through patches of randomly planted vegetables and herbs,”
“It was confusing, stunning, and incredibly beautiful.”
“A fractal…something considered simple and orderly that is actually composed of repeated patterns no matter how magnified”
“Looks like a mess to me”
I have placed three stages of “Holy Spirit 3” so you can see the progression of the piece. This painting is a commissioned work. The red background is as if there is a beautiful sunrise and maybe some of the bright background colors are other objects within the garden that are not in focus. As you look at the flowers I hoped to capture a “moment in time” when the flowers are moving to the wind and nothing stays the same. The painting is small by my standards only 16″X16″.

I’m by no means an expert on clownfish but here is some information on this beautiful and interesting fish. Clownfish live in small groups inhabiting a single anemone. The group consists of a breeding pair, which cohabit with a few non-reproductive, “pre-pubescent”, and smaller male clownfish. The clownfish are native to warmer waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, including the Great Barrier Reef and the Red Sea. While most species have restricted distributions, others are widespread. Clownfish lay eggs on any flat surface close to their host anemones. In the wild, clownfish spawn around the time of the full moon and the male parent guards them until they hatch about 6 to 10 days later, typically 2 hours after dusk. To learn more about clownfish visit Wikipedia.

This painting is for sale. Contact me at grantp@hiwaay.net for a special price on “Clownfish 1”.

During my diving days I had the pleasure of actually diving and seeing these unique fish.

Talk about color (I love the Orange). Because of their bright color it has been a struggle to introduce more color into this painting.
I started a painting to express my feelings of the Georgia Aquarium. This painting, “clownfish 1″ 18″X18” is just for fun. Hopefully, you can catch the mood of the sea warm waters, and all is well in the clownfish world. Please enjoy the series I have here… I hope to finish this painting in the next couple of nights.